The first few days...

Well I’m here, and 3 days later I’m writing this blog. Indirectly anyway; for the moment I’m without Internet so I’m writing it in a word document to copy and paste later. It’s been a tiring start to life here. Not least because I had to get up at the rather ridiculous hour of 4am for a 6am flight from Birmingham. To compound matters I realised that I felt rather ill and my throat had swollen up like a balloon, something which no amount of ibuprofen and other drugs will get rid of. I really need to see a doctor but haven’t had time at the moment. I’ll try and find one tomorrow even though it’s Saturday and get the fat throat sorted. The flight was uneventful, I unsurprisingly fell asleep and was only awoken by the Air steward tapping me on the shoulder and telling me to turn Damien Rice off because the plane was about to land.

After a bit of a wait for a bus we finally arrived in Udine and had to drag our suitcases from the bus station at the bottom of town to the International office at the top but it gave us a chance to have a quick look at the town and it created a good first impression. After our welcome meeting with Alessia who was reasonably helpful and very organised for an Italian we went to meet our landlady at our address on Via Superiore. When I first saw the room I was happy, until she said that since it was a room for 2 people I would have to pay €400 instead of €220. Now that’s obviously a lot of money and adds up to a total of €4000 for the time I would be there, far far far too much for me to contemplate paying, especially for a what was basically a Formule 1 hotel room with a desk, 2 electric hobs, a mini fridge and one of those futuristic bathrooms where everything gets soaked and then mysteriously dries (although judging by the smell of damp every time I got back, this one didn’t!) Oh and there was no internet too.

So with that I went for a walk on my own and generally felt really depressed about the situation. People who went to Lille and are reading this will understand that this was the down point in my graph (for the rest of you, don’t worry about it). I was faced with the prospect of paying a ridiculous amount which I couldn’t afford for a property or trying to find a new one in a day and a half, an absolutely daunting task given that I was unsure just how good my Italian could be. To compound matters I was ill and it was raining, and I mean raining. I got absolutely drenched and wondered where the hell Id turned up because Italy wasn’t meant to be like this. With no Internet I couldn’t even talk to people to cheer me up so I went to the university, found a notice board with dozens of housing notices on, picked off the numbers that I liked and put them in my pocket to call the next day. Seeing that most were advertising single rooms at around €250 – 300 confirmed my instinct that she was trying to rip us off. That night we ate pizza, as we had for lunch.

So there the next day, after briefly going to the International Office to try and sort the problem and being told that it was a justified price I returned to the flat and sat down with a big map of Udine and dialled some numbers. Rather amazingly I coped and secured 3 properties to look at with relative ease. One thing I will say is people here are incredibly friendly and really try and help you (the woman in the library even ran out after me to give me some information in English). The first apartment I saw was really nice, very modern and shared between me and 2 other guys, neither of whom were students but were both young. The second property was older but bigger, had a massive balcony and room for another 5 people (students certainly according to the landlady) to fill. The third, the less said the better.

Me and Emma both looked at the second property and together decided to take 2 of the rooms. I’m glad we did, although it’s older it’s a great size. The living room is huge and my rooms a good size. The kitchen’s fully equipped and the landlady is a legend. She picked us up from our old accommodation and gave us a lift. She then whipped out some new towels and sheets, made our beds and told us there’s someone coming tomorrow to clean around and sort a few bits and pieces out (hopefully my wardrobe because judging by the smell in it, whoever was last in my room had a serious BO problem!) The balcony is incredible, it goes all the way around the apartment and has great views of the bustling streets below, and you can smell the pizzeria which is under the flat…amazing! All I could think when I was stood on it was how amazing it would be for a party. I’m glad to have found this flat. I’m certainly a lot happier here and am looking forward to when the other rooms are full with students to get to know people because we’ve not met anyone yet, Erasmus or Italian. Still no internet in the flat but I’m going to buy myself that mobile broadband jazz tomorrow so hopefully it will be sorted out!

I suppose I should write about Udine too. Well so far I really really like it. It’s a very pretty city and a lot more Italian looking than I was expecting (I’d heard it was very Austrian.) All the shops seem to be designer and I haven’t yet found a phone shop to buy a sim card but there are lots of cafés and it’s obviously a thriving, safe and friendly city. I think I’m going to really enjoy it here as long as I meet some students soon.

Alright, I’m very tired and this has gone on far too long. My next one will be shorter but there was so much to tell.

Bye everyone, get in touch. Ask me for my address if you want it.

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